It may be a perfect metaphor for modern times: a miracle of the most advanced technology celebrated with a presentation of the most primitive morality.

After 20 years in the making, Switzerland’s Gotthard Base Tunnel opened last Wednesday to much fanfare. Now the world’s longest rail tunnel, the Gotthard has a route length of 35.5 miles and a total of 94.3 miles of tunnels, shafts, and passages. The largest construction project in Swiss history, the €11bn tunnel is also the world’s deepest, running more than 1.4 miles below the Swiss Alps. Unfortunately, the project’s opening ceremony also reached great depths — of depravity.

In fact, the ceremony was so depraved that critics have described it as a “bizarre occult ritual”; “satanic”; and for the conspiracy-minded, as a manifestation of the post-Christian “New World Order.” As the Daily Mail put it, “The Swiss have put on one of the most bizarre opening ceremonies in history…. A winged baby, semi-naked dancers and a man with a bird’s nest on his head…[is] how Switzerland decided to mark opening of world’s longest rail tunnel.” TruNews.com provides more detail:

The ritual, dubbed by BBC as a “lavish performance” was originally intended to represent various aspects of Swiss culture. It included 600 dancers, acrobats and dramatic actors and cost CHF8.8 million ($8.9m). The performance began with a cohort of miners dressed in orange jump suits, marching like zombies toward the tunnels entrance (depicted on a video screen). The miners were then seemingly sacrificed to the tunnel and emerged as veiled spirits (represented by dancers in underwear with white wedding veils), and an actor dressed as a goat sprung out and began ritualistically consuming and mating with the veiled dancers. During this segment a headshot of the actor dressed as a goat was displayed on the video screen with a black and red backdrop and an absorbing fire lofting around his face, while three Egyptian scarabs floated in front of the screen. The next scene shifted to pagan druid ceremony, with the actors now draped in black subdued clothing and adorning nests, plants and trees on their heads. As the goat man laid on the floor an upside down tree was displayed on the video screen and the actors chanted a song in a mix of Ancient Germanic and Italian.

The ceremony ends with the goat man being resurrected and worshipped as he is introduced to technology, industry and modern society — with many of the actors clothed as cross dressers, drifters and harlots

[video https://youtu.be/JVw_mPvYcDM].

(The second part of the video is found here.)(https://youtu.be/K1Xg7lYuYus)

This ceremony was a high-profile affair, too, “attended by a plethora of European leaders. Included among the guests were French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the President of Switzerland Johann

And what was the ceremony’s meaning? It was imagined and coordinated by a German director named Volker Hesse — who is relatively obscure beyond the German-speaking world — and it’s hard to say exactly what his intended “message” was, assuming he even knows. Note that in our age of disjointed thinking and reliance on feelings, many works are free-association creations, the artistic version of an ink blot. But whether the performance was of the occult or satanic as some contend, it certainly was thoroughly pagan.

Ancient pagans were wont to dress as animals, and worshiping the creation — as opposed to the Creator — was not uncommon among them. And the Swiss ceremony puts the goat-man front and center, apparently being paid homage by the other actors, who appear at one point to almost genuflect before him. There is also a segment where the goat-man's white-robed "followers" strike a pose reminiscent of pictures showing disciples following Jesus.

As for the winged baby, it’s an androgynous character wearing an ominous-looking mask; it’s certainly no angel of light. (Note that Satanin Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was portrayed as androgynous.) And what’s the point in showing people in the most revealing underwear in sexual poses? Whatever the possible message, it reflects not the Christian ethic but unbridled, perverted pagan sexuality.

In the final analysis, though, the motivation behind the Swiss ceremony really isn’t that hard to grasp. There was a time, ages ago, when a grand accomplishment would have been celebrated with a Mass, and a priest would have blessed the new venture or thing. This is out of the question in the post-Christian West, however. And to state the obvious, something that’s not Christian will be non-Christian.

And that’s what you witness in the video. The ceremony was “originally intended to represent various aspects of Swiss culture,” wrote TruNews.

And that’s precisely what it does.

It goes beyond mere conspiratorial machinations — which would amount to a small group of twisted, powerful people trying to twist everyone else. The ceremony reflects an already twisted, post-Christian civilization that’s confused philosophically, morally, spiritually, and sexually. It reflects a hedonistic, rudderless West that tries to convince itself it’s moral with posturing about “diversity,” “tolerance,” “inclusiveness,” “multiculturalism,” and every other ego-stroking, conscience-soothing ism. A worshiped goat-man? Why not, in a time when people anthropomorphize beasts and claim man is just another animal? Cross-dressers and an ominous-looking androgynous baby? Makes sense in a place where many think a boy can be a girl and don’t even know what marriage is. Unbridled animal sexuality? Would you expect anything else from a civilization whose unofficial credo has become “If it feels good, do it”? Many have found the Swiss ceremony surprising, but what’s more surprising is that people are surprised.